


Research

by MiniNephthys



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-09
Updated: 2011-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 05:06:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniNephthys/pseuds/MiniNephthys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naesala tells Pelleas about the rotten fruits of Izuka's research.  March 2008.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Research

The first thing Naesala said after Elincia told the other groups that they’d killed Izuka, before she even could explain who he was, was “At last.”

She hadn’t thought much of the comment, but Pelleas had. “Did you ever meet him? I don’t remember you ever visiting Daein - at least, not before he left…”

“It’s a long, very unpleasant story,” he answered, “and not one I’m willing to share in public. If you still want to hear, I could find us some place more private…”

Pelleas nodded, ignoring the worried gaze of his mother. “Please.”

‘Some place more private’ was a small, sparsely-furnished tent. Naesala settled down into the only chair, and after waiting for Pelleas to find a comfortable spot on the ground, began to speak in a low tone.

“This happened about thirty years ago, ten years before your father became king. I was about your age then…

“Once there was a beorc researcher who wanted to learn more about the laguz. He conducted many experiments and found out more about their anatomy than any single person before him had. The demi bands we use, for example, are made possible by his findings.

“However, while at first his experiments had been innocuous, if a bit unpleasant, there was one question he had yet to answer.

“What happened to a bird laguz whose wings were cut off?”

Pelleas gasped. “You don’t mean that Izuka-”

“As I was saying,” Naesala continued, interrupting him, “no amount of compensation would make any laguz volunteer for this particular project. So he found slaves. Men, women, children of every race were sold without knowing why. There must have been at least a hundred total, to minimize any errors in the data and to allow for some… variations on the experiment.

“Most of them just had their wings cut off with a knife. Without any healing or bandaging, they bled to death. So did the ones whose wings were torn off. The unluckiest were those that the scientist kept alive and then forced to transform… It was a horrible sight, more than I could possibly describe.

“That’s terrible…” Pelleas whimpered, in shock. “How could anyone…”

“One of them managed to flee back to Begnion after she had served her purpose, and she found a boat that would take her to Kilvas.”

 _The first moment he’d seen her, he thought she was a young beorc, sitting on the pier alone. Then he smelled her, and he knew._

“She was only a little girl, and she told everything that had happened to anyone who would listen.”

 _“What happened to you?” he asked her, eyes on the bandages that wrapped around her back. “Who did this?”_

 _“_ Humans _happened to me,” she spit out, wrapping her arms around herself and quivering. “Humans did this.”_

“Izuka, she swore over and over. Izuka was a monster, a heartless monster.”

 _“Izuka the genius, he killed us all; he killed us all because he just wanted to know how we died.”_

 _By that point a small crowd had gathered around them, and they murmured, “No, it couldn’t have…”_

 _“It did,” she insisted, clearly trying to hold back the tears. “It did, I swear! I saw it all!”_

 _Someone reached out to comfort her, and she broke down, sobbing into his sleeve._

“She told us how she saw her parents and siblings die in front of her, how she could still hear their screams months later… It sounded impossible.”

 _“Everyone is dead, I saw them, I saw them crying for help and screaming and wouldn’t someone help them? And they just sat back and wrote on their scrolls.”_

“But when she took off her bandages-”

 _The scars were healed, but that made them all the more disturbing - those were her_ wings _that were gone, something so large a part of her own identity should leave some sign, more than just a network of lines on skin-_

 _“Goddess,” he swore, and she answered sharply, “I can’t believe in her any more.”_

“-and showed us the scars on her back-”

 _“After seeing my father, my mother, my baby sister die, I was already screaming.” She offered her audience a painful smile. “So, in a way, it wasn’t so bad.”_

“-when she _transformed_ in front of us-”

 _Her wings cut off at the very base, leaving muscle and tissue and bone visible in a mockery of what a laguz should look like, bleeding and disgusting and she was only a child-_

 _He closed his eyes, trying futilely to make the images go away._

“-what could we do but believe?”

Naesala took in a deep breath. “Tibarn’s nightmares are of the Feral Ones, I know, and Reyson’s are of the night the Serenes Forest burned. But late at night, I can almost hear them, still screaming.”


End file.
